Cold Comfort

The view from the winter burough.

     "Hey dear brother, it says here you should move out," Warren said, looking up from the iPad. "It would help us both live longer."
     Marty, pondering the thought of having Warren move out instead, asked, "What the heck are you reading anyway?"
     Warren flipped the iPad around and handed it to Marty, who read the story about lonely yellow bellied marmots.

Cousins, yellow bellied cousins.

     The story, Being Antisocial Leads to a Longer Life. For Marmots, made Marty laugh out loud and want to spray his brother with disinfectant.
     "I'm not sure this actually applies to us," Marty said. "We're a different sub-species aren't we?
     And besides, we're civilized, we clean ourselves and we certainly get plenty of sleep, even if we don't hibernate anymore."
     Handing the iPad back to his halph-brother, Marty's dark thoughts continued .......  a burough to himself, nobody to disturb him, nobody to clean up after but himself .... blissful it would be he thought.
      "I know what you're thinking," Warren said. "I have no plans to move out and I don't want you to move out either. I like it here and we're staying."
     Marty, acknowledging the sense his brother was making, said, "It's just the season, the cold, being cooped up in here most of the time. We'd have to be stupid and crazy to think we could get by without each other."